


hearts weep with joy

by Engineer104



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff, Grief/Mourning, Implied Sexual Content, Married Couple, Post-Blue Lions Route (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Pregnancy, little bit anyway, mercedes/sylvain in the background a bit, no grade? no beta, so much sap, they're gross and in love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-04
Updated: 2019-11-04
Packaged: 2021-01-22 14:15:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,663
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21303440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Engineer104/pseuds/Engineer104
Summary: For better or worse, Felix is the Duke Fraldarius.And he's nothing if not grateful for Annette and their small but soon to be a little bigger family.If only he could dismiss his fresh fears as easily as snow melts in spring.
Relationships: Annette Fantine Dominic/Felix Hugo Fraldarius
Comments: 15
Kudos: 259





	hearts weep with joy

**Author's Note:**

> hope you enjoy!! <s>and i know very little about pregnancy...but i love these characters and for some inexplicable reason the idea of them having children together</s>
> 
> shout-out to the felannie Discord for giving me the idea for Annette's "song" at the very end!! I can't remember who first mentioned it, but i remembered the headcanon and seized it for this fic so thank you for that <3

Administering Fraldarius territory could be devastatingly dull, but at least he didn’t do it alone. 

Every morning he woke with the sunrise and Annette’s breath tickling his ear. Unsurprisingly she woke before him, but of late she’d taken to lingering in bed until he was ready to face the day alongside her. 

Felix turned to face her, a greeting on his lips before he noticed her expression, something open but guarded. Her eyes constantly flicked to and from his face, and she smiled tremulously as she sat up with her arms wrapped around her legs. She shivered in her thin nightgown, yet another sign that autumn was well on its way. 

Felix pushed himself upright and rested a hand on her shoulder. His heart raced, some fear that he hadn’t felt in a long time - not since the war - gripping him. 

Until he recognized the gleam of barely concealed excitement in Annette’s eyes. 

He frowned, confused. “Are you...all right, Annette?”

“Perfect!” she told him cheerfully before she burst into a fit of giggles that definitely held an anxious edge. But she relaxed under his touch, her legs crossing and her hand falling to her abdomen. “I’m a little queasy, I suppose, but that’s to be expected.”

His gaze followed the motion. “Should I send for a healer?” he wondered, unable to keep the worry from his voice. 

Annette, to his amazement, laughed. The sound, as musical and twice as pretty as church bells, filled their bedchamber, warming - and reassuring - him far better than any crackling hearth or platitudes could. Her small, slender hand cupped his cheek and tugged him a little closer. “I’m fine, Felix,” she insisted, “but...oh, to tell you. It’s just like you making it harder to just..._say_!”

Her words did little to diminish his confusion. “I’m sorry?”

“No, you’re not,” Annette said, rolling her eyes. She leaned a little closer, her forehead touching his and their breath mingling. Felix’s eyes slipped shut, relishing the moment before he had to leave the quiet privacy of their bedchamber and face his daily duties again. 

Well, they were both awake, and surely the duke himself could make his steward wait a little longer...

He bridged the gap and kissed her, softly, soundly. A pleased hum just as delightful as any of her songs met him. Her fingers tangled in his hair, and his hand fell to her hips dragging her a little closer. 

And then Annette pushed him away. 

“Wait, no, Felix, stop distracting me!” she protested. A livid red colored her cheeks, but she scowled at him and pressed a hand against his chest right over his still racing heart. 

“What?” he said. “You still seem unsettled.” He sighed. “Annette, are you sure—“

“Yes, I swear by Saint Seiros’ grave, I’m fine!” Annette giggled breathlessly. Her hands dropped to his shoulders as she shook her head. “It’s not like we’re facing another war, although I suppose there will be plenty of battles to fight…”

“You’re rambling,” Felix observed, raising an eyebrow at her. 

“I know, it’s just hard to tell you, all right? Because I think you’ll be happy, but I don’t—“ She cut off when he grasped the back of her head and pulled her closer. 

“Just tell me what’s on your mind before I lose mine.”

“Ugh, fine!” Annette flailed her hands and blurted, “I’m pregnant!”

At first Felix wasn’t sure he heard her right, because her face was screwed up in a wince and she wouldn’t look at him except for little darting glances that made something in his gut clench. But then his mind replayed her words over and over again, joining her lyrics in that hallowed place in his memory.

“You’re—“

“Yes!” Annette finally met his eyes properly while he just stared at her, her hands clasped together so tightly her knuckles whitened. “I have a baby in my womb and it made me sick this morning!”

Felix’s jaw hung open uselessly, his mouth dry. But Annette just held his gaze, waiting for him to say something. With each passing second her excitement faded, until he knew he couldn’t get away with silence any longer. 

“That’s...Annette…” Something inside him unfurled. Some tension fell away, and a flicker of an almost alien feeling - _giddiness_, he realized, a feeling he only ever experienced with Annette - filled him. 

He couldn’t fight the smile rising to his lips. 

“A baby,” he said, a little breathless himself. Something that would be part of Annette - the love of his life - and would have some small part of him too. He pressed a hand to his forehead. “You’re having a baby.”

Annette smiled brighter than she did on their wedding day. She took one of his hands in both of hers, and though his easily dwarfed hers it fit perfectly. “I’m going to have _your_ baby.”

Felix decided then and there to hell with it! The steward could wait all day. 

* * *

Winter gripped Faerghus with a vengeance, the worst for as long as Felix could remember. It kept him busy writing letters (as if someone could deliver them while the roads were icy and perilous) and traveling to the further reaches of Fraldarius territory where desperate bandits found opportunity or to Fhirdiad to meet with the boar and Sylvain. 

Last year Annette might’ve accompanied him, lightening an otherwise dull and lonely journey, but this year he insisted she stay ensconced in the relative warmth of the castle. 

She agreed after some initial complaints (and after he promised to bring her back something sweet from her favorite bakery in Fhirdiad, never mind that it would go bad before he returned). She also gave him letters to deliver to Mercedes and to her father. 

“Don’t destroy the kitchens while I’m gone,” Felix said after tucking the letters deep in his pack.

Annette pouted, crossing her arms. She was only just beginning to show her pregnancy, though her dress concealed it well enough few would give her abdomen a second glance. “Don’t start any fights while you’re gone.”

Felix shuffled his feet a little guiltily. “Uh…”

“I mean it!” Annette said. “If I find out from His Majesty of all people that you picked a fight with my father again I’m not singing for you until the baby is grown up!”

His eyes widened. “You wouldn’t.”

“Try me.”

They stared at each in a silent battle of wills before Felix caved first. He frowned at his feet and promised, “I won’t quarrel with your father.” No matter how much he wanted to…

“Good!” Annette then threw her arms around him and buried her face into his fur-lined hood. “Be safe, all right? Don’t do anything that’ll make the baby an orphan before he’s born, got that?”

Felix returned her embrace as strongly as he dared. His chest tightened - it had been years since they’d been apart for longer than a week - and he sank gratefully into her arms.

Then her words sank in.

He pulled away from her and raised an eyebrow. “He?”

“Yes, he.” Annette frowned, looking adorably confused.

“How do you know it’s a boy?” he wondered. “Can you do that with white magic?”

“What?” Then Annette smiled and stared down at her hand resting on her stomach. “No, I just have a feeling. That’s all.”

* * *

Felix only personally told a few people - his friends, old comrades, his steward - that Annette was expecting. He considered himself a private person, but when pressed about why the good duke was in such an uncharacteristically bright mood he would confess readily enough. 

Naturally Annette (after her initial reticence telling him, the _father_) shared the news more readily. 

Old classmates he barely remembered from the Officers’ Academy, schoolmates of Annette’s from the School of Sorcery he’d met once or twice each, a random shopkeeper near her father’s home...all congratulated him on the happy news. And Felix, suddenly daunted by the attention, barely stuttered out his thanks before retreating. 

It was the first thing Sylvain, Dimitri, Ingrid, and Mercedes mentioned when he met them at the castle. 

“Finally!” Sylvain said, smacking him on the back with enough force he might’ve stumbled a few steps were he a lesser man.

“Congratulations, Felix,” Dimitri said almost solemnly, though he smiled widely (and _did_ hit Felix with enough force he nearly lost his balance; damn boar strength). “I can only hope our children will grow up as closely as we did, and as our fathers did.” 

His chest tightened at the mention, but he nodded and forced the small smile he’d already worn to stay frozen to his lips. “Just make sure you stay alive for them.”

Dimitri frowned, but before he could retort Mercedes swept past him, wearing a serene grin. “I hope Annie is getting enough rest,” she said. Her eyes struck him almost judgmentally. “She’s not very far along yet, but soon she won’t have the strength to run around like always.”

Felix sighed; oh, he hadn’t even thought of that yet. 

Ingrid was far giddier about the news than he expected, even going so far as to clap her hands together and looking as excited as if he’d offered her her favorite meal. “Oh, I can’t wait to tell the little one stories of knights!”

Felix rolled his eyes but didn’t comment. 

Sir Gustave at least kept a respectful distance, offering Felix a quiet congratulations when he gave him Annette’s letter. 

“Thank you,” Felix said stiffly. “I know Annette would like a visit from you in spring.” His muscles tensed - he did not especially like his goodfather - as he turned to leave, not wanting to draw out a conversation.

“I know you wouldn’t,” Gustave protested in that infuriatingly mild way of his. “I’ll respect the duke’s wishes.”

“But not your daughter’s?” he snapped before he could help himself. Felix pinched his eyes shut and mentally recited his promise to Annette. He crossed his arms as he faced Gustave again. “I hope for her sake you’ll be a better grandfather.”

“I pray that you’re right,” Gustave said, “and that you will be as good a father as yours.”

His prayer fell on Felix’s ears with the force of a curse. 

* * *

Where Annette’s songs always wrapped him in a comforting blanket, her father’s words haunted him all the long, cold journey home. Hypotheticals danced through his head while he had too much time to think until all he could hear ringing through his mind was his old man’s most damning words:

_He died like a true knight. _

Felix was never glib of tongue or thoughtful in his words. He was well-aware of how prickly and abrasive he could be (though Annette softened him), and he rarely bothered to modulate his tone.

If he ever said the wrong thing to his own child…

Rodrigue Achille Fraldarius was many things, and maybe once he was even a good father. But Felix, for all the heaviness in his chest when he so much as thought of him, did not want to _be_ him anymore than he wanted to be his brother. 

Felix’s children deserved better than that. 

“...lord? Lord Felix? Duke Fraldarius?”

He nearly fell from his saddle when his steward’s voice broke through the agitated fog of his thoughts. “What?” he said more irritably than he meant. 

The steward seemed unbothered by his tone and only said, “We are nearly upon the castle. Would you like me to send a rider ahead to announce us to Lady Annette?”

“Oh...yes,” he agreed easily. He was of half a mind to spur his horse forward himself, but he could already hear Annette berating him for not giving her a chance to greet him “properly”, whatever that meant. 

(One day he _would_ surprise her, dammit.)

One of his men raced ahead on his own horse, the banner bearing the Crest of Fraldarius trailing behind him. 

Felix’s heart pounded in anticipation, in time with the faster horse’s hooves. He reached into his pack one last time, making sure the letters and gift for Annette remained dry despite the weather. 

Damn this cold. At least the fold of Annette’s arms would be warm. 

She waited for him in the courtyard, bundled up in so many furs her face barely peeked out. Snow crunched underfoot as she walked up to him right when he dismounted and wrapped him into a warm, furry hug before he even handed the reins off to a stablehand. 

Hugging Annette wrapped in furs felt more like hugging a docile bear, though he suspected she smelled far sweeter. 

“What are you doing out here?” he wondered. “You could’ve waited for me inside.”

“I missed you,” she admitted easily enough. Her head fit snugly under his chin, the fur lining her hood tickling his cheek. “Just so you know, you’re grounded when the baby is due.”

He pulled back slightly, enough he could cup her wind-rubbed cheek with a gloved hand. “Why’s that?”

“I want you here for the birth, obviously.”

“I wouldn’t miss it for anything,” he promised. 

He felt more than saw Annette smile.

* * *

Felix sat in a comfortable chair in front of their bedchamber’s hearth, soaking in the heat of a fire after washing away the sweat of travel in the bath. Annette sat sideways across his lap, her feet dangling over the chair’s arm. 

She combed her fingers through his damp hair, frowning. “You couldn’t dry your hair any better?”

“I’m sitting in front of a fire,” he said. 

“Still…” Annette’s brow furrowed in concentration, and a heartbeat later a gentle breeze stirred through his hair. 

It took with it all the moisture. 

He raised an eyebrow when she smirked at him. “Really, Annette?”

“You’re welcome,” she teased, poking at his arched eyebrow. 

He nuzzled into the warmth of her neck, feeling the slight swell of her abdomen against his when he did. Her belly was noticeably more pronounced than last time he saw her, and a very large part of him wished he’d been home watching the gradual change. 

Her hand grasped his and rested it on her stomach. “How was the visit?” she wondered. 

He looked up. “Oh, it was”—_too long without you_—“all right. Mercedes, Dimitri, and Ingrid sent letters back for you.”

“Oh…” She frowned before asking, “Did my father?”

Felix’s jaw tightened. “He did,” he said. 

“Oh, good!” Her voice dripped with relief, and damn her father for making her doubt. 

But Felix kept that thought to himself. 

Annette then narrowed her eyes suspiciously. “Any particular reason why you didn’t mention his letter until I asked?”

His heart skipped a painful beat while a fear he couldn’t dismiss gripped him anew. His gaze slipped past her towards the merrily crackling fire. “No,” he lied. 

(He didn’t know why the words to confide in her caught in his throat.)

* * *

Annette loved his gift: a leatherbound journal with a gleaming cover decorated with painted flowers. 

“You can write your songs on it,” he told her, his own gleeful smile rising to his face. “Songs for me, songs for the baby, songs—“

She kissed him soundly, her hand fisting in his collar and her fervor stealing his breath away. She pulled back slightly before he truly got enough of her taste and her heat, a smile pushing at her lips and eyes shining. “Felix, I love you.”

These words came so much easier these days than they once did. “I love y—“

It was a long time before she let him finish another sentence. 

* * *

Annette woke him one night early in spring. Her hand gripped his shoulder, shaking with urgency. 

Felix bolted upright in the darkness of the bedchamber, his heart racing as he reached for the sword he kept leaning against the wall. “What happened? What’s going on?”

“The baby it...woke me up.”

Felix, his fingers wrapped around the hilt of his sword, stared at Annette sitting beside him, her silhouette faintly illuminated by moonlight. The shadow of her hand rested on her stomach. 

“...what?” he said dumbly. 

“He kicked,” Annette said, her voice wavering. “He _kicked_!”

Felix’s jaw dropped in disbelief. “What?” he repeated. His heartbeat slowed, sword lowering. 

“Put your damn sword down and give me your hand.” Annette didn’t wait for him to obey; she grabbed his free hand and set it gently over the swell of her stomach. 

Felix met her gleaming eyes, frowning even as Annette beamed at him. “Will I even—“

A faint flutter nudged the palm of his hand, barely perceptible through the layers of skin and her thick winter nightgown. But it was unmistakable. 

His sword slipped from his grasp as he swore, “Holy shit.”

Annette giggled. “He’s getting stronger,” she said. “The last one was weaker, almost like he’d just woken up and was stretching.”

Her words washed over him. “There is a human inside you,” he said. 

“He’s a small human.”

“But there is a human in there!” Felix insisted. He was well-aware he babbled, but somehow it hadn’t quite sunk in like this, that Annette carried a child and that child was as much his as it was hers. 

And children...children were fragile, sensitive things. Goddess knew even he’d been one (not that he ever liked to admit it), naive to the horrors of the world before adults failed to protect him from it. 

He grew despite it, or because of it, but he’d be damned if the world forced any child of his to grow half so fast. 

* * *

“Felix,” Annette said one evening while they walked around a courtyard for once free of snow. She leaned against him, a little unsteady on her feet - doubtless she’d sleep early tonight after they’d hosted her uncle and cousin visiting from Dominic territory - with her arm tucked into his. 

“What’s wrong?” he asked, worried. She’d been awfully quiet all evening, seeming to draw into herself the longer they spent with Baron Dominic. 

Felix didn’t particularly like him - hard to forget he tried to hold Annette hostage during the war - but he’d expected a little more cheer from her since the baron all but raised her. 

“I, uh...what if I’m—“ She cut herself off, trembling against him. 

He halted, turning to face her while his gut tightened with fear. “Annette—“

“Do you think I’ll be a good mother?”

Felix’s eyes widened. “What brought this on?” he demanded. 

“I just...well...I’m so clumsy that what if I drop the baby on his head?” Annette wondered. She pulled her arm away from him, more obviously fretting. “What if I do anything else careless? What if I forget to feed him or bathe him or take him somewhere and leave him behind just because I’m lost in my own thoughts or—“

Felix gripped her arms to halt her tirade, pinning her with his gaze. “You won’t be a bad mother, Annette.”

“How do you know?” she said almost desperately. Her eyes shone, and he realized she was close to tears. 

(She had been more emotional lately…)

“Is this about what your uncle said?” Felix asked. His pulse quickened in anger, in irritation, like it had during dinner before Annette got quiet. 

_Parenthood is not an endeavor to be undertaken lightly, Annette,_ the Baron had said. _It’s hard to believe you’ll be ready for it. _

Annette violently shook her head. “Felix, how do you know I won’t mess up so colossally my son will hate me when he’s older or even _die_?”

His heart skipped a beat, and his own thoughts threatened to take an unpleasant turn. But Annette needed his reassurance. 

“You...don’t know,” he said, squeezing her shoulders, “but I know you’ll be a good mother because no one works harder to get better at something than you do. You’ll make mistakes - I will too, Annette - but you will be great because you’ll _learn_.”

Annette stared at him, her eyes slipping shut as if she let his words wash over her. “Felix…”

Felix swallowed around the lump lodged in his throat. “We won’t...we won’t be our parents,” he promised. He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her against him until she pressed her tear-streaked face into his chest. “We’ll do better.”

He hoped his words convinced her more than they convinced himself. 

* * *

“What names are you thinking for the baby?” Mercedes asked Annette when next she visited. 

Sylvain, unfortunately, came in tow. 

He flung an arm around Felix’s neck - he resisted the urge to shrug it off - and said, “You still haven’t picked names?”

Felix glared at him, but Annette piped up, “We were planning on it.”

Mercedes wondered, “If it’s a boy, will you name him after your brother, Felix?”

His grip on his fork tightened, his appetite all but vanishing. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “Maybe.” His eyes flicked to Annette where she sat across the table from him beside Mercedes.

Her gaze met his quickly, and a slight smile graced her face. Her foot nudged his under the table, and she said, “We’ll talk about names later, Mercie. Right now, why don’t you tell me about how Emilie likes the book I sent her?”

* * *

“In two months,” Annette announced that evening after Sylvain and Mercedes retreated to a guest bedchamber, “you and I will have a son. Or a daughter,” she added as an afterthought, “but I still think this one will be a son.” She rested a hand on her abdomen - she’d been doing that more and more often of late - and continued, “I think for the next I would like a daughter. One of each just sounds perfect!”

Felix squeezed into the chair beside her, letting her words fall over him. Her voice did wonders to calm the agitation that Mercedes’ innocent question infected him with, and he was content just listening to her rambling while she flipped through the notebook he’d bought her from Fhirdiad months ago.

She rarely let him peek at her scribblings, so this was a rare opportunity to try to read over her shoulder.

At least until she noticed.

Annette snapped the notebook shut and tapped his nose with it. “Stop that!” she said. “You’re not allowed to read my lyrics until they’re ready for singing!”

“You’ve been working on that one for months!” he protested. “I’m starting to think you’ll never let me hear it.”

“Maybe after the baby is born,” Annette said. “I think I’ll have it finished by then.”

“Oh?” Felix quirked an eyebrow at her. “Why is that?”

“Because…” Her cheeks colored. “It’s for him.”

Something in her voice loosened the spring coiled tightly in his chest. He rested his forehead against the crown of her head and inhaled, breathing in her sweet scent. “I hope he looks like you,” he said.

“Oh…”

“I hope he has your smarts and your humor and your big heart,” he continued without thinking. “If he has your big heart, he’ll…”

_Forgive us, _he thought. _Forgive me, even if I don’t deserve it._

Annette poked his cheek until he lifted his head to look at her. “Are you...upset about Mercie’s question?”

Felix glanced away from her, staring out the window into the moonless darkness of night. “I…”

“_Felix_,” Annette groaned. “Talk to me, please?” She cupped his jaw, and he let her turn his head to face her again. “And if you tell me you’re upset because I still won’t let you hear the baby’s song, I’ll know you’re lying.”

“How?”

“Because you waited patiently till after we married to hear the swamp beasties song,” Annette reminded him.

Felix frowned - he would hardly call his wait _patient_ \- but dared not contradict her.

“Uh...but really, _do_ you want to name the baby after...after Glenn?”

He sucked in a breath.

“I don’t mind!” she quickly reassured him. “I’ll just reserve the right to name the next one! Oh, she can be a precious little girl that looks just like her father!”

This time her words couldn’t quite calm him.

Felix leaned forward, his heart racing in an all too familiar way; it was like being cornered into a fight, caught like...well, like a wild boar. Except there was no enemy here to lash out against, no sword in his hand to drive them back, only his wife asking an innocent question that he’d been too shortsighted not to see coming.

Of _course_ they’d name the baby.

“I--no,” he eked out. “I don’t want to name him after Glenn.”

“Then--”

“You name him,” he told her. “He’ll be as much your son as mine.”

_More hers, _he wished.

Annette’s hand, small and cautious, touched his elbow. “Felix--”

“I don’t want him to feel like I did growing up,” he explained in a rush, as if the second he stopped speaking of it he never would again. He’d kept it all contained for so long, perhaps it was a matter of time before the words overflowed. “I don’t want him to--to feel like he has to live up to some ideal, to be like someone he’s never even met before!”

He waved a hand, unable to look at Annette in the midst of his tirade, fearful of what he’d see in her eyes. “I think I w-wouldn’t begrudge Dimitri or Ingrid naming one of their children after him, but I--I can’t.” Something caught in his throat, and he realized too late it was a pathetic little sob. “I want to look at my son and see _him_, not Glenn.”

Years - over a decade - and he still couldn’t escape his ghost.

But he was wrong to fear Annette wouldn’t understand.

“You’re not--you’re not your brother, Felix,” she told him. She leaned into his side, her fingers running through his hair before he turned towards her.

“What if I...what if I say the wrong thing to him?” he mumbled. “What if I can’t understand him when he most needs me to?” Maybe in a different state he’d be ashamed of how small, how weak, he sounds, but he couldn’t help the anxiety that gripped him like a vice.

“You’re not your father either,” Annette reassured him, her tone soothing. “Just like--just like I’m not mine! It’s like you said...we’ll be better parents than they were or, uh, are. You’ll apologize when you need to, and I’ll be there to mediate.” She smiled up at him and patted his cheek.

Her fingers came away damp, and he was grateful she didn’t comment on that.

Instead, she wondered, “Do you--do you want me to sing your song?”

Felix nodded, too choked up, his chest too tight, to trust himself to speak without his voice wavering.

He sank into her arms, his head pillowed against her chest with her heartbeat in his ear. Her voice, sweet and tempered, unraveled the tension in his spine, and his own heartbeat matched the rhythm of her tune.

They slipped into an easy silence when she finished, until Annette said softly, “I think I like the name Ernest.”

Felix swallowed, a smile he didn’t have to force shaping his lips, and said, “I think I like it too.”

* * *

Annette grew bored with the confinement her condition imposed on her very quickly.

Her mother and Mercedes both stayed at the castle in the weeks leading up to her due date, waiting on her hand and foot even when she asked them to _please_ let her see to her own errands.

When his duties allowed, Felix was right there with them. He declined invitations to visit Adrestian lords and barely left the castle for anything within his own territory. When a rider arrived from Fhirdiad with the message that the king requested his presence, Felix sent him running (on a fresh horse so he wouldn’t be slowed down) with the reply that _the boar can stuff it_.

(The messenger looked stricken when he heard those words, but Felix couldn’t muster much sympathy; besides, it wasn’t his fault Dimitri sent his inane “request” with such dreadful timing.)

“It’s going to hurt,” Annette told him once while lying prone and visibly uncomfortable on their bed. Her hand rested on her abdomen, eyes fixed on the high ceiling and loose hair fanning around her head like a halo. “It’s going to hurt, and I’m going to cry, but--”

“I’ll be with you,” he promised, not for the first time. His fingers tightened around hers.

“My breasts and back always hurt,” she whined, “and I feel...so big and full. Not like I do after eating too much, and _definitely_ not like I do when we make love--”

“_Annette_.”

“--but it’s going to be so strange without him in there.” 

“Maybe you’ll at least start eating normal things again,” he said wryly.

She laughed and said, “I guess so. It’ll be nice to drink tea again…”

She still insisted on their evening walks, away from her mother’s and Mercedes’ watchful eyes and the gazes of a household holding its breath waiting for the birth of an heir. She leaned against him while staring mournfully at the wilting flowers in the gardens.

(She hadn’t been in any condition to plant them herself this year.)

“How’s the song?” he wondered, hoping it would cheer her up.

“It’s almost done!” she said, and Felix felt his own flash of triumph at the brightness in her voice. “I think it might even be ready for h--oh.”

Annette doubled over, clutching at her abdomen. “_Oh_.”

Felix, with panic rising into his throat, didn’t need to ask her what was wrong. He wasted no time scooping her up - she still weighed almost nothing in his arms - and running as quickly as he dared back into the hold towards their bedchamber.

To a maidservant he shouted, “Fetch Mercedes and Lady Dominic!”

The maidservant jumped, dropping her bundle of laundry, but sprinted away with an excited _at once, milord_.

Mercedes burst into the bedchamber as soon as Felix settled Annette against the pillows, her face red with obvious exertion. “Oh, Annie--”

“I...think that was a false alarm,” Annette confessed...right as a wince escaped her.

Mercedes rested her hands on her hips and announced, “I’ll be the judge of that.”

She whimpered and reached out. Felix grasped her hand, and when she met his eyes, she said, “I thought I was ready.”

“You are,” he told her, swallowing his own nerves.

“But…”

“I’m here, Annette,” he reminded her, smoothing her hair back, “I promise. I’ll even sing for you.”

To his relief, she smiled.

* * *

The birth lasted hours, but to Annette it must’ve felt like days. She gripped his hand with all her startling strength the entire time, and by the end her fingernails left little imprints in his flesh.

Which was nothing to her pain. He didn’t even begrudge her calling him “evil” and “a villain” - he might even have laughed if terror that something would go so terribly, awfully, disastrously wrong didn’t fill him - when he couldn’t take any of it away.

“You did so well, Annie,” her mother comforted her from her other side.

Annette nodded numbly, relaxing a bit with her eyes slipping shut. “I’m so tired,” she mumbled. “I don’t think I ever felt this tired during the”--a giant yawn split her jaws--”war.”

“You can’t sleep yet,” Mercedes said with a wide grin. “Don’t you want to meet your son?”

Annette all but bounced upright as she reached for the blanket-wrapped bundle in Mercedes’ arms. “Yes!” Her eyes darted towards Felix. “Yes?”

“Yes,” he agreed.

His heart hurt, he decided, but in a pleasant way. It felt on the verge of exploding as he watched Mercedes settle the bundle into Annette’s arms, watched her peel back a layer and a shaky smile rise to her face.

“Oh, Felix, he has your hair!” Annette exclaimed.

He sat beside her and peered at the baby - his son.

Red, wrinkly face, tiny hands curled into tinier fists, soft whimpers, a shock of hair on his head so dark it was nearly blue…

“Wow,” Felix said, all eloquence failing him. He couldn’t tear his eyes away, not when (under Mercedes’ and her mother’s advice) Annette finally settled him at her breast to nurse and not when the other two ladies in the room departed. He raised his hand to stroke the baby’s soft cheek before hesitating.

“What’s wrong?” Annette wondered. “Are you jealous you can’t hold him yet?”

“I’ll have my turn,” he said, “but…he’s so…”

“Beautiful?”

“_Small_.”

Annette giggled, and he finally looked back to her. She met his gaze before leaning towards him until her forehead rested against his. “He’ll get bigger, goddess willing. Stronger too.”

She knew him so well it almost scared him.

“But until then we’ll both keep him safe and happy, won’t we?” She bent over to kiss the baby on the forehead. “You _do_ want to hold him, right, Felix?”

“Y-yes,” he said, his face warming when his voice cracked.

Annette carefully maneuvered the bundle into his arms.

They sat like that for a while, Felix marveling at the tiny pink creature sleeping in his hold, a million and one fears and hopes and dreams for the future flitting through his mind too fast for him to linger on a single one. Annette’s head pillowed on his shoulder, her hand loosely grasping his knee while she hummed an unfamiliar tune.

_“Girls with white dresses and blue satin sashes,_  
_Snowflakes that stay on my nose and eyelashes,_  
_Silver white winters that melt into spring,_  
_These and my loves are my favorite things…”_

His heart skipped a beat in recognition: this must be the song she wrote for their son.

“I love you, Annette,” he murmured into her sweat-damp hair. “I love you both.”

Annette sniffed and said in a voice dripping with emotion, “I love you both too.”

(Later, after she and their son sleep soundly in bed, Felix will open her song journal and find the dedication, _For my son, Ernest Faust Fraldarius_.)

**Author's Note:**

> i think the subject matter of this fic is a first for me, interestingly, but there's some ideas in there i've wanted to write for a little while :3
> 
> hope you liked it!! let me know what you thought <3


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